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Sharpen   /ʃˈɑrpən/   Listen
verb
Sharpen  v. t.  (past & past part. sarpened; pres. part. sharpening)  To make sharp. Specifically:
(a)
To give a keen edge or fine point to; to make sharper; as, to sharpen an ax, or the teeth of a saw.
(b)
To render more quick or acute in perception; to make more ready or ingenious. "The air... sharpened his visual ray To objects distant far." "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill."
(c)
To make more eager; as, to sharpen men's desires. "Epicurean cooks Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite."
(d)
To make more pungent and intense; as, to sharpen a pain or disease.
(e)
To make biting, sarcastic, or severe. "Sharpen each word."
(f)
To render more shrill or piercing. "Inclosures not only preserve sound, but increase and sharpen it."
(g)
To make more tart or acid; to make sour; as, the rays of the sun sharpen vinegar.
(h)
(Mus.) To raise, as a sound, by means of a sharp; to apply a sharp to.



Sharpen  v. i.  To grow or become sharp.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sharpen" Quotes from Famous Books



... four or five-foot sprouts toppled down, he undoubtedly felt as great a satisfaction as Beaver Tooth felt when he sent a seventy-foot birch crashing into the edge of the pond. Baree could not understand the fun of all this. He could see some reason for nibbling at sticks—he liked to sharpen his teeth on sticks himself; but it puzzled him to explain why Umisk so painstakingly stripped the bark from the ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... wildernesse, And fals freres forboden the fayre ladis chaumbres; 16 For knewe lordes her craft treuly I trowe They shulden nought haunten her house so ho[m]ly[64] on nyghtes, Ne bedden swich brothels in so brode shetes, 20 But sheten her heved in the stre to sharpen her wittes. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... preparation of which constitutes a distinct industry, are either of larch, Spanish chestnut, ash, willow, birch, or beech—larch or chestnut being preferred. Women clear the poles of the bark, and men sharpen them at one end, which is dipped in creosote before being used. The ground is cleared, and the poles are stuck in against the old plants in ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... dull gray nothing! Something must have gone wrong with their assembly work. Ross touched Ashe's shoulder. But now there were shadows gathering on the plate, thickening, to sharpen into a distinct picture. ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... Improved Tories," he wrote, "I think the scheme is excellent. You sharpen your wits on other people's, and you keep in touch with all kinds of opinions. That's excellent! Your father, and you, too, used to say we were rather one-eyed in Dublin, and I think there's a good deal of truth in that, so I'm trying to get a group of people in Dublin to form a society ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine


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